I know. Thanks for the recap.

Alrighty then. Get that Apple IIc game to work on your 360. Got and emulator for that? How's them apples?

I was using it as an example of the fact that technology and the mediums it is delivered on have constantly changed throughout history. And if I put a Tie Fighter disc into my Windows 8 machine, exactly jack shit would happen.

Corvin laid out two generations for BC. I would accept that. But I never expected that. Just like I'd have to find a NES (or an emulator) to play Blaster Master today, I'll have to keep my 360 if I want to play Rock Band. And if that 360 dies, I'll have to find another one.

Which is an excellent point. The 360 is a closed system. While porting a general purpose Apple II emulator over to it is theoretically possible, MS likely never would let it get published.

The 360 has already had a number of emulators run on it. MS made an Xbox emulator that ran a number of games. Game Room has a bunch of old arcade, Atari, and Intellivision games emulated on it. Sega has released collections of Dreamcast and Genesis games on it. XBLA has emulated games available on it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Room
http://www.amazon.com/Dreamcast-Coll.../dp/B004JF4Z3U
http://www.amazon.com/Sonic-Ultimate...dp/B001G3AZS2/

If a publisher felt like releasing the Apple II version of a game on Xbox using an emulator, they likely could relatively easily.

Actually, I think the instructions I linked to should work for Windows 8 as well. If nothing else, DOSBox should still work:
http://www.jonathanmoeller.com/screed/?p=4087

Again, the point with PCs is that even though both the hardware and OS have progressed, they maintained a level of backwards compatibilty that's remarkable, although the older a game is, the more likely it'll need tweeking. But since the PC is an open device, users are able to tweek the game and OS themselves to get it running.

Also, with a PC, since the hardware/OS upgrades are iterative, with hardware constantly improving and new versions of Windows every few years, PC games are designed to work over a wide swath of systems, and there's never a hard cutoff for games where they no longer work on a new system. If I take 5 years between buying PCs, my new PC is likely to still be able to play the majority of my games without tweeking, and even more with some tweeking. With the Xbox One, it just straight up doesn't play any old games, at all.

As has been pointed out before, the 360 isn't as durable as the NES. For one, the optical drive on it has the potential for failure, as is the harddrive, while the cartridge-based NES has no moving parts to fail when playing a game. For another, the 360 generates a lot more heat, which has caused issues over its lifetime as a console.

For another, everything you need to play an NES game is on the cartridge. For 360 games, there's often patches you need to download to make the game playable, let alone optional DLC. MS isn't likely to keep the servers on forever, and they're even less likely to if their most recent system doesn't support the games. After that promised "5 years of support," a good chunk of your Rock Band game could disappear if your console fails and you have to load it up on a new one.

Relying on emulation is even more problematic. While it's worked for older consoles, consoles have gotten progressively more complex, making them harder to emulate. Something like the 360 even has an OS to content with, something an SNES emulator never had to deal with. For an example, take the original Xbox, which was released over a decade ago and used the x86 architecture, yet there's still not a very functional emulator for it:
http://www.ngemu.com/forums/showthread.php?t=132032

As PC power progresses, I have no doubts that a 360 or PS3 emulator would be possible.

And if my 360 dies and I lose all my Rock Band content, I certainly got plenty of enjoyment out of the system. If it lasts for 5 more years (totally realistic) then that's even better.

I just don't understand why people want the old stuff to work on the new stuff so badly, when the old stuff is sitting right there. And I know it could be an issue down the road. I had more than one 360 red ring. But I also don't look at my games like investments. They are played and then usually sold or traded in. If the Xbox One has dumb issues with that, I'll just buy fewer games.

Thread has gotten way too technical. Needs more speculation-based rage!

It's not just processing power, it's complexity. Again, the original Xbox is x86, so the ability to run the CPU code on a PC is trivial. It's the OS and DirectX API calls that are tripping people up. Basically, you have to re-implement the OS from scratch.

Well, I guess you don't have much in terms of DLC or game downloads, since those can't be traded in. Those that do want to be able to replay games later down the road see things differently.

...and you can, with an Xbox 360. Which I'm sure will be abundant and easy to find for years to come.

And lo, the 360s shall flow like wine....

People have already explained that some don't want to have to deal with two consoles and two sets of contollers set up in their home theater setup. And what about Kinect, are people expected to have two different Kinects arranged in front of their TV?

There's also the question of support. If the Xbone supported 360 download titles and DLC, there'd be incentive for MS to keep servers up for that for the duration of the Xbone's lifespan. As of now, MS has promised 5 more years of 360 support, and then... what? Will people even be able to download the patches to their disc titles after that? What happens when your 360 dies and loses the patches and DLC and such?

This isn't like previous generations, where everything you needed to play was right on the disc/cartridge.

Backwards compatibility also allows new adopters to a particular brand of console to experience a range of titles, it gives the console an established library right out the gate. If I were new to the Xbox consoles, I'd be more inclined to buy an Xbone when it's released if I knew I could catch up on a number of 360 titles I never experienced. So there's financial incentive for console makers to make it available besides just consumer good will.

Nope. Draven has declared it unnecessary. Let us all line up for our new consoles and be happy to pay MS lots of money for the privilege.

Wow... same shit over and over again.... I hatz u allz!

Yep. I remember threads from people asking for recommendations since they were coming from the PS2 and skipped the original xbox. I'm sure there was an influx of Halo 2 sales from people new to the Xbox world. Granted at that point a lot of those were probably used sales, but those probably translated into future sales. (although publishers don't seem to believe that)

Jokes on you. I like hats!

Apparently you want to pay even more money to play games you can currently play right now. Or did you think they'd throw in 360 emulation for free?

And don't we always pay lots of money for new consoles? And most of those have not been backwards compatible either. Yet this time...it was a requirement?

There have been people in this thread...who own 360s...who think Microsoft should put out an XBLA machine they could buy separately. The mind...it boggles.

I love this "emulation costs lots and lots of money" stance yet if you look at the pc, all the emulaters are typically done by regular folks in their free time just for shits and giggles. MS has the money and resources to make it work, they choose not to.

I still find it odd that they don't see the value in BC and choose to flush 50+ million 360 gamers, who have bought into their ecosystem, down the drain. People would be more likely to stay with MS if things carried over ala iOS. Since that isn't the case, and people are starting from scratch again, they are free to re-examine the Xbox platform as a whole(paying for live? ads? x1 cons, etc.) and jump ship.

It just boggles the mind that executives can't see that. Or they do see it and just think their shit don't stink.

Why is this such a foreign concept? A small device you could move room to room(or even network) to play a library of games isn't appealing? A device you could potentially plug into the X1 for full BC? You wouldn't swap out a bulky console for a device you could fit in your pocket?

If it's a separate device, and you aren't interested, you wouldn't be paying for it with the X1 bundle. Why does it bother you so much?

I was originally interested in backward compatibility when I first got my Xbox and was debating a PS3, but out of all the consoles I've had that had BC, the one I used the most was - the Atari 7800.
I think I bought maybe 2 GC games to play on the Wii, and I started playing a couple PS1 games on the PS2, but generally speaking, when I get a new console, I'm playing that console's games.
Not sure how XBLA should be affected by that. I've got a ton of XBLA games and since they're still installed, they're easily accessible - I don't need to move them, and can't sell them to make room on the shelves.
I still have all my old consoles (except the Saturn), and up until about eight months ago, they were all hooked up and playable. Not sure if I can rely on the 360 to still be playable in ten or more years, but the precedent is there.
I think an XBLA machine could have a target market and do reasonably well.

When did you buy the Xbox and Wii? Was it at launch, or later on when they both had built up a library of games and dropped in price?

It doesn't bother me in the slightest. This is a discussion forum and we are discussing. Don't think for a minute that I care about any of this outside of killing time.

That said, I've just seen a lot of complaints from a small group of enthusiasts about how they can't play their 360 games anymore on an Xbox One. It comes across like "Microsoft OWES ME backwards compatibility!?!?!"

I'm also still trying to wrap my brain around the idea that 360s are going to explode on the One's launch day and remove this ability. If people want to keep playing 360 games so much...they are free to do so. Until MS shuts the servers off, I still don't see what the issue is.

If your entertainment center space is so limited that you can only have one console, I guess you have to choose between a 360 and an Xbox One. I recommend the 360. By the time you get through all of the games and play XBLA titles until you are tired of them, the One will have dropped in price and have better games anyway. Problem solved!

My Xbox One (or PS4, depending on the used game policies) will be going in the space that my PS3 currently occupies, to the right of the 360 which will stay firmly put.

It's not that simple. PS2 emulation is in a good state, but does require a decent computer to run some games and has taken a long time to develop to reach this point that I'm not sure I would chalk up to just shits and giggles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCSX2#Speed_misconceptions

XBox emulation by fans hasn't happened at all, like Jay G. already mentioned earlier along with the complexity of current consoles.

Obviously Sony and Microsoft would have more money and more architectural knowledge to develop it themselves better and more efficiently, but even XBox 1 emulation on the 360 wasn't perfect and limited.

Again, I totally wish that Sony and Microsoft both had backwards compatibility, but treating it like it would be such an easy thing to do if they cared just isn't accurate.

On a side note, just wondering out loud, I wonder if more people would be forgiving of the used games or digital downloads of full games if they were completely tied to your account like Steam and future compatible if the manufacturers remain x86. Tough to guarantee, but it would be nice.

I don't think anyone has this attitude. Many people have stated that they would like backwards compatibility, and some people have accused MS of being consumer unfriendly by not offering it, but nobody has said that MS owes them backwards compatibility. MS is free to not offer it, just as people are free to complain about the lack of it, and even decide not to upgrade because of it.

Nobody has suggested this, and you know nobody has, so you're being disingenuous by making a deliberate misstatement. People have put forth reasonable arguments for wanting backwards compatibility and how it could benefit both consumers and even potentially MS. If you don't agree with those arguments, that's fine, but don't go creating straw men arguments.

The "problem" is solved for everyone except MS, which would rather people buy the console sooner, rather than later. And as Michael Corvin pointed out, the lack of backwards compatibility means that existing 360 owners have to real reason to pick the Xbone over the PS4, since they're starting from scratch either way. Nor is it solved for people who like to play the latest games but keep their library, since MS is likely to drop 360 versions of newer games before the Xbone drops in price significantly. What's more, keeping the 360 would inspire further investment in the 360, which would make the transition away from that library even more painful when the time comes.

I bought the Xbox about 1 1/2 years after launch, and the Wii about 6 months after. The only system I bought at launch was the Sega 32x, and, well...

I agree that lack of BC makes it easier to 'cross streams' and get the other console. Of course I also think that this generation has seen more multiconsole households than before, but that may or may not continue, with the pricing structures (although it did take years, and multiple price drops, to get there in this gen).
On the other hand, BC makes it more attractive to jump ship as well. If I had a 360 this gen, and the PS4 was BC, that makes it a little more attractive to me because I have access to the previous library of games as well. But that was my thinking last time too and that feature wasn't really utilized much.

The things I've heard (some of which may be FUD and lack of clarity, and the fact that I haven't really been following) about DD and new/used games bother me more than lack of BC. Lack of BC has a technical component - "it'll cost more to do this, it'll never be quite as good as a non-emulated game, wouldn't you rather we focus on new games", whereas the others have an anti-consumer-choice component, which I don't want to support.

Any word on whether video purchases will transfer?

Yes, they will:
http://www.polygon.com/2013/5/22/435...-from-xbox-360
And they damn well should, considering the MS promotes Xbox Video and Music as "buy once, play anywhere."
http://support.xbox.com/en-US/music-...-play-anywhere